


One More Second Chance

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Alan Barnes is sadistic but here I made it better, Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Post Audio 103: The Girl Who Never Was, They love each other so much, honestly dunno how to tag, k bye, they're my babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: What if the TARDIS had waited just a few moments longer?
Relationships: Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10





	One More Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, TGWNW absolutely w r e c k e d me, so this happened. At 2 am. Somehow I've never seen a fix-it for this, which is honestly kinda surprising. 
> 
> This is actually my favorite fanfic I've ever written and I'm quite proud of it. I hope you guys like it!

“No no no, just wait a second, please!!!” Charley shouted, sprinting desperately toward the TARDIS, praying that the ship would hear her and listen. It started wheezing like it always did when it dematerialized, the HADS were controlling it now. Carried by her momentum, Charley slammed hard into the doors, which miraculously opened to let her inside, where she collapsed in a heap on the floor, panting with exertion.

“Thank you, oh, thank you so much, I’ll never say a word against you again,” she gasped to the ship. Usually the TARDIS wouldn’t let her inside, the Doctor had to open the doors- the Doctor. “Oh, oh no…” Charley stumbled to the other side of the console.

The Doctor laid still, lifeless, exactly where he’d been before. He wasn’t breathing.

“Oh, Doctor,” Charley breathed, and slid an arm under his limp form, pulling him against her as well as she could. This- this couldn’t be happening, he couldn’t be- _dead_. He was the Doctor, he was a Time Lord, for heaven’s sake… A Time Lord. “Wait,” Charley whispered. “Time Lord.”

Just before he had lost consciousness, he’d rasped for her to remember… “Remember what I said,” had been his exact words. But what? What had he said? He said a lot, he _was_ the Doctor after all, never shut up. But he’d said something about this, about the Cyber-worm, hadn’t he?

Yes, she was sure he had, just before he’d tried to wipe her memory. “Come on, Pollard,” Charley growled to herself, “Remember!” He’d told her something about a trance, how he could purge the Cyber-worm if it got into his head. She sighed shudderingly and let out a noise somewhere between a sob and a grateful laugh. The Doctor would be alright, he’d wake up and she’d see those bright blue eyes and he’d say her name the way that made her heart miss a beat, he’d make her explain everything and they’d hold each other and she’d probably cry – and at this point she didn’t even care, usually she wouldn’t do that in front of him, she had to be brave, didn’t she? But just now, today, she didn’t care.

A part of her _wanted_ to cry, had been wanting to for the past two days, ever since C’rizz had- had died. For some reason, though, she couldn’t. All she had wanted to do, from the time she stepped foot back in the TARDIS with the Doctor, even before he started rambling – she knew he didn’t mean what he’d said the way it sounded, although it was still hurtful – and they’d fought, even before then she’d wanted to cry. And after, once she told him to take her home and went back to her room, the tears behind her eyes built until she thought she’d be sick. How had she ever wanted to leave him? But still, no matter how much she wanted it, not a single tear fell.

How long would it take before the Doctor woke up? It was selfish and Charley knew it, but all she wanted was to feel his strong arms around her and to bury her face in his neck and finally be able to break down. For now she just cradled him in her lap and watched the central pillar of the TARDIS console go up and down, up and down. It was comforting, both the rhythmic movement and thrumming, as well as the knowledge that they were safe in the Time Vortex.

It suddenly occurred to her that this right here, floating nowhere and everywhere at once in time and space, encapsulated by the constant presence of the sentient ship, was more home to her than the house she’d grown up in. With a jolt, Charley realized that maybe, just maybe, when she’d snapped at the Doctor to take her home, she’d subconsciously been pleading with him to comfort her, to put an arm around her shoulders and help her through her pain. She shouldn’t have expected him to feel the grief the same way she did. She’d seen how well he dealt with love – oh, how could she have acted like that toward him when she knew he loved her so much? She was such a stupid girl sometimes – and should have guessed that he would handle grief just as poorly.

Maybe neither of them had thought things over properly. She knew for herself, she’d hardly been able to think at all. It was all a fog now, in memory, a haze of unspeakable hurt and agonizing grief and tears that refused to be cried.

The Doctor stirred and began breathing visibly again. His eyes blinked open and fixed on Charley’s. He swallowed hard and reached up as if to touch her face, then pulled his hand back and sat up, staring at her. “Charley…” He cleared his throat and repeated her name again, this time clearer. “Charley, Charley…” He gazed at her with a mixture of pain and fear and love and hope and hesitantly reached out again.

This time Charley didn’t give him the option to change his mind. She took his hand and guided it to her cheek, leaning her head into the touch. “Oh, Doctor,” she murmured, and the incomprehensibly welcome tears began to slip down her face.

The Doctor only hesitated for a fraction of a moment before pulling her to his chest, and not a moment too soon. Sobs, raw and broken, wracked her frame as he held her, loud enough that she just barely heard the sweet nothings he gently whispered into her ear. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Charley felt a little bad for messing up his clothes, but that feeling disappeared as the desperate tears continued to flow and he stroked her hair and softly kissed her head and his thumb traced circles where his hand rested on her back.

Maybe this had been what she’d really been asking, maybe this was the home she had wanted to return to, deep down. It had been so long, _so long,_ since she had felt able to let the Doctor see how broken she was. She’d been so worried about him for so long, so concerned with being strong enough to help him after she’d seen him at his worst, that she never let him see what was hidden just beneath her surface. She’d never shown him how badly he had shattered her, so long ago now but so fresh in her mind and heart, had never really let _herself_ think about it, even though she sometimes felt like she was broken into so many pieces that her heart was just a pile of glass shards.

Finally, the specifics of what the Doctor was muttering to her registered in her mind. “I love you,” he kept saying. “And I’m so sorry, for everything.”

“I love you too,” she sniffed, forcing herself to take a deep breath. “I love you so much. I don’t know if I can really tell you how much.” Her voice was ragged from crying, her breathing uneven. She rested her forehead against the Doctor’s shoulder and she could feel the beating of his hearts, 1-2-3-4, with hers seeming to pound out a miraculous descant alongside them.

She sniffed again as he tipped her chin up, then cupped her face in both hands and wiped away the last of her tears with his thumbs. She tried to smile, but couldn’t. Her shoulders still kept shaking at intervals, and she couldn’t think of any words to say that would make sense, that would explain everything she was feeling right now.

The need for words ended rather quickly when the Doctor leaned forward and suddenly nothing mattered but his lips on hers and the way his curls felt as her fingers tangled in them and their heartbeats harmonizing. They pulled apart after a few long moments and Charley tried to force her hands to stop shaking, but she couldn’t and so for some reason she held tightly onto the Doctor’s lapels.

She didn’t ever want this to end, wanted this softness and closeness and relative peacefulness to last forever. She didn’t look at him, instead closed her eyes again and counted her breaths until he spoke again.

“You’ll stay?” the words were barely a whisper. “Please-“ his voice broke.

Did he really think she would have broken down like she had, that she would have let him kiss her like that, if she still intended to leave? She couldn’t help but laugh just a little, though it didn’t sound or feel quite like a real laugh should. Before she could talk herself out of it – after all, what was she really risking anymore? – she tilted her head back up and kissed him again, hoping he could sense her love through the soft contact. “Does that work as an answer?” she asked when she pulled back, and felt like she would gladly drown in the blueness of his eyes as she stared into them. She caught the flicker of joy and relief that crossed his face before he clasped his arms around her again and just held her for so long she almost could have fallen asleep.

Charley hadn’t realized until now how tired she really was. It had been more than two days since C’rizz had died, maybe three by now, and she didn’t think she’d slept the entire time. Crying had been cathartic, absolutely what she needed, but also made it harder to keep her eyes open.

“You’re exhausted,” she heard the Doctor say. “You should go get some rest.”

“Mmm…”

“Charley.” There was a smile in his voice.

“I don’t want to be apart from you,” she said quietly. “Not tonight.” Was it night? She had no idea.

The Doctor sighed. “I know. At least go get cleaned up, though, alright?” He waited for her to nod and sit up straighter before finishing, “I’ll make us some tea.”

Charley couldn’t help but smile, really smile, this time. Always with the tea. “Alright,” she mumbled as he stood up and offered a hand to pull her up.

She stepped into her room almost reverently, taking in all the things she usually didn’t notice, in the acknowledgement of how close she had come to losing all of this, everything she called home. She cleaned herself up and changed into a soft pair of pajamas, then headed back down to the console room.

She paused at the door to C’rizz’s room and bit her lip. Resting a hand on the wood, she fought back another sob. She’d cried enough for one night already, but… “Please don’t get rid of it,” she whispered to the TARDIS. She knew the ship didn’t like her, even could sort of understand why. But she also knew how the TARDIS could create and uncreate rooms and move them around. This one hadn’t been here until C’rizz came, and now that he was gone, Charley was afraid it would disappear again.

“Please?” She said again. She supposed she wouldn’t really know if the ship would comply, not unless C’rizz’s room _did_ vanish. But at least she had asked. It was the best she could do. “Oh, and I’m sorry.” She didn’t quite know why she was apologizing. “I’m sorry you had to go through everything with the anti-time,” she explained further, feeling somewhat odd to be talking to a time-and-space machine, even if it was sentient. “If I could have stopped it, I would have, really.”

Charley thought the TARDIS’ hum changed in pitch just slightly, and she couldn’t be certain, but it felt as if her apology had been accepted.

The Doctor looked up when she walked in and his mouth lifted at the corners. He handed her a cup of tea as she sat down beside him and curled her legs up.

“I won’t ask about everything that happened, for tonight,” he began, turning a little so he could wrap his arm around her middle. “I…” he seemed to be searching for words, even though Charley thought she knew what he would say. “I did care for C’rizz,” he finally said in a low voice. “I’m sorry I acted otherwise.”

“I know you did,” Charley replied, the tea and his closeness making her groggy again. “I forgive you.” They _would_ have to talk about this, sometime. Probably sooner rather than later, but she was too tired to really have another conversation. She took another sip of tea and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I love you...” the last thing she said before drifting off, she didn’t know if the words were even audible.

The Doctor did hear her, and gently took the teacup from her limp hands and set it on a side table nearby. “I love you,” he murmured back, pressing one more kiss to the top of her hair before he let the pace of his breathing fall into sync with hers and his eyes slid softly closed.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by the wonderful [LadyofLothal](/users/LadyofLothal/)
> 
> I was originally gonna write a fix-it where Eight *was* the one who came back two months later (instead of Six), but for some reason I couldn't make it read and feel right, so I decided to try this one instead and it turned out way better than I expected. 
> 
> Please comment if you enjoyed it or had any thoughts, I really love getting to talk to other fans (and s h i p p e r s) :)


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